DRUG AGENCY SECRETARY DIES IN CRASH

WASHINGTON -- U.S. authorities are investigating the death of a secretary killed in a car crash last weekend who worked with drug agent Victor Cortez before he was abducted and tortured by police in Guadalajara, officials said Monday.

Susan Hoefler, 32, an American secretary in the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Guadalajara, Mexico, died at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday when she apparently lost control of her car and ran into a utility pole, a DEA spokesman said.

U.S. authorities, already investigating Cortez' abduction and torture last week by Jalisco state police, will examine whether there was any foul play involved in Hoefler's death, a Justice Department official said.

But a DEA spokesman said the investigators at this point had "no reason to suspect the car crash was anything more than an accident."

Hoefler, from Arlington, Va., handled contracts for the office, for such things as purchases and outside work done for the agency, the spokesman said. She was on her way to the airport to pick up another DEA secretary returning from vacation when she crashed the car and died instantly.

A spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara said Hoefler had lived in Mexico for many years. No official report of the accident was released, but police there said they believed Hoefler swerved to avoid another car.

Her body was being returned to the United States Monday, officials said. A State Department official said Hoefler's mother, Marjorie, had been training for a special assignment for the department in Guadalajara. Mrs. Hoefler was unavailable for comment.

Word of the secretary's death came as the Reagan administration delivered a stiff protest letter to Mexican officials Monday about Cortez' treatment.

The note will express "extreme displeasure and concern" and list the injuries Cortez suffered, a State Department spokesman said.